Official Report: search what was said in Parliament
The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
The Official Report search offers lots of different ways to find the information you’re looking for. The search is used as a professional tool by researchers and third-party organisations. It is also used by members of the public who may have less parliamentary awareness. This means it needs to provide the ability to run complex searches, and the ability to browse reports or perform a simple keyword search.
Searching by different views
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
- Report: this is the whole Official Report for a particular meeting of a committee or Parliament
- Item of business: this is each individual agenda item in an Official Report. For example, Portfolio Questions would be the item of business in a Meeting of the Parliament report
- Contribution: this is each time someone has made a spoken contribution to a meeting.
Depending on the kind of search you want to do, one of these views will be the best option. The default view is to show the report for each meeting of Parliament or a committee. For a simple keyword search, the results will be shown by item of business.
Search by MSP
When you choose to search by a particular MSP, the results returned will show each spoken contribution in Parliament or a committee, ordered by date with the most recent contributions first. This will usually return a lot of results, but you can refine your search by keyword, date and/or by meeting (committee or Chamber business).
We’ve chosen to display the entirety of each MSP’s contribution in the search results. This is intended to reduce the number of times that users need to click into an actual report to get the information that they’re looking for, but in some cases it can lead to very short contributions (“Yes.”) or very long ones (Ministerial statements, for example.) We’ll keep this under review and get feedback from users on whether this approach best meets their needs.
Searching by keyword
There are two types of keyword search:
- A keyword search without quotation marks will look for every instance of each word used and rank the results by frequency and proximity. It will also include variants of the keywords using “porter stemming”. This is when the search looks for the “stem” of a word regardless of its ending. So, for example, a search for [salmon farm] will return each instance of “salmon” and each instance of “farm” as well as potentially including results for “farms”, “farmed” and “farming”.
- A keyword search with quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase used. So, for example, a search for “salmon farm” in quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase.
Combining search filters
If you select an MSP’s name from the dropdown menu, and add a phrase in quotation marks to the keyword field, then the search will return only examples of when the MSP said those exact words. You can further refine this search by adding a date range or selecting a particular committee or Meeting of the Parliament.
More complex keyword searches
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
- a search for “salmon farm” AND “Loch Lomond” will return only results which include both exact phrases
- a search for “salmon farm” NOT “Loch Lomond” will return results for “salmon farm” but exclude results which also include “Loch Lomond”
- a search for “salmon farm” OR “Loch Lomond” will return all results for “salmon farm” and all results for “Loch Lomond” regardless of whether they appear together
Searching by date
There are two ways of searching by date.
You can either use the Start date and End date options to run a search across a particular date range. For example, you may know that a particular subject was discussed at some point in the last few weeks and choose a date range to reflect that.
Alternatively, you can use one of the pre-defined date ranges under “Select a time period”. These are:
- Current session (all Official Reports since the current sessions started)
- Last 6 months
- Last 12 months
- each of the previous sessions of Parliament. (Selecting the information icon above the “Select a time period” menu will give you the exact dates for each session.)
- All sessions
- You can also choose to select a custom date range, although adding a Start or End date will mean the search automatically defaults to this option.
If you search by an individual session, the list of MSPs and committees will automatically update to show only the MSPs and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of MSPs and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of MSPs and committees will update to show the information that was current at that time.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
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Displaying 3697 contributions
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Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 14 December 2023
Richard Leonard
I will take us back to one of the fundamentals that we have discussed a few times this morning. Do you believe that NHS boards are on track to meet the target of 10 per cent of all front-line spending being on mental health services?
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 14 December 2023
Richard Leonard
In other words, that might mean a shift from some areas of current expenditure in acknowledgment that mental health is a growing issue that should be a central part of the national health service’s work, perhaps in a way in which it has not historically been a part.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 14 December 2023
Richard Leonard
Yes. To go back to a point that Graham Simpson made earlier, we recognise that some of the data is required for management purposes, but the committee would strongly support the maximum amount of data being in the public domain so that people can understand what is going on and follow implementation of the policy and delivery of outcomes.
We have come to the end of our evidence session. I thank Alistair Cook, Gavin Gray and Caroline Lamb for being with us this morning. In particular, I thank you for coming to the committee room. Quite a few of our evidence sessions have been with people who have joined us remotely, which is not always easy. You might be surprised to learn that technology sometimes fails, although, on the whole, we have had really good evidence sessions.
Thank you very much for the time that you have given us this morning and for being so willing to answer the questions that we have put to you.
10:39 Meeting continued in private until 11:20.Public Audit Committee
Decision on Taking Business in Private
Meeting date: 14 December 2023
Richard Leonard
Good morning. Welcome to the 33rd and, I assume, last meeting of the Public Audit Committee in 2023.
The first item on our agenda is a decision on whether to take agenda items 3, 4 and 5 in private. Do we agree to do so?
Members indicated agreement.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 14 December 2023
Richard Leonard
Presumably, you concede that taking nearly £30 million out of the budget, on top of taking £38 million out of it last year, will have an impact on services.
Public Audit Committee
Section 23 Report: “Adult mental health”
Meeting date: 14 December 2023
Richard Leonard
Thank you very much indeed. I think that you alluded to it, but, for the record, I ask you whether you accept all the key messages and recommendations in the report.
Meeting of the Commission
Audit Scotland Budget Proposal 2024-25
Meeting date: 11 December 2023
Richard Leonard
So, there will be net savings on the estate by 2025.
Meeting of the Commission
Audit Scotland Budget Proposal 2024-25
Meeting date: 11 December 2023
Richard Leonard
Okay, but it is useful for us, as a commission, to be able to compare one financial year with the next financial year, or apples with apples, so perhaps there is a better way that you could present that information. Can I deduce from what you have told us that the fees that you are charging to Scottish Government departments and sponsored bodies of the Scottish Government are also rising by 6 per cent?
Meeting of the Commission
Audit Scotland Budget Proposal 2024-25
Meeting date: 11 December 2023
Richard Leonard
So, what happens between now and April 2025?
Meeting of the Commission
Audit Scotland Budget Proposal 2024-25
Meeting date: 11 December 2023
Richard Leonard
Thank you. That would certainly be a useful thing to do.
One of the other areas where I was struggling a bit to make the comparisons and to understand the narrative that is in the submission to us is around the estate strategy. I think that Stuart Dennis might have clarified matters a little for me earlier, but just so that I am clear about this, if I look at the overall figure for property, we are told that there is going to be an estimated financial saving of in the region of £2.2 million over a 10-year period. That is an average saving of £220,000 a year. We are also told in paragraph 78 that the Glasgow accommodation cost rise is in the region of £298,000. I want to make sure that I am comparing apples with apples. That is a one-year figure versus the 10-year figure for the net saving. It is helpful if the units are immediately comparable, but I am not sure that they are in that case. Could you develop that and explain to us what the increased costs are, what the decreased costs are and what the net position is over a one-year, a three-year and a 10-year period?
